TRAINING OF TRAINERS

This curriculum is a three-day core-training program for trainee trainers and has been delivered throughout the United States and Canada. Most recently it was taught in Ukraine to trainers who are preparing to teach foster parents, adoptive parents and orphanage staff.

To be effective as a trainer, the trainer must have knowledge of his or her content and be skilled in delivery of content. Trainers need to continually examine their personal effectiveness and seek training and development opportunities. The master trainer communicates these needs to the trainee group early in the session.

The curriculum has been developed with the adult learner in mind. Malcolm Knowles has said adult learners need to experience the following in training:

A) – A problem-centered time perspective,

B) – Be seen as capable and self-directed,

C) – Understand how what they are learning will help improve what they are doing,

D) – Be valued for their life experiences and what they bring into the job.

Delivery of training, therefore, is interactive and focused on the adult need for application of information to the “real training world.” Key content information supports the lecturettes to help the trainer better understand his or her responsibilities as a trainer. In addition, the lecturette material and activities will help the trainer understand the scope of the job as a trainer. In order to accomplish this, the lecturettes are supported with group discussions; large and small group activities, videos and videotaping. Feedback sessions, along with the master trainers’ stories of personal experiences are all used to develop the new trainer.

The interactive process will also help the master trainer understand and better address the individual strengths and needs of the participant/trainers. Feedback is given both openly and privately to the trainers through the session.

The curriculum is designed to establish a solid foundation of knowledge and understanding of the role of the trainer in the earlier sections; while developing skill transfer (use of platform skill in delivery of relevant content) in later sections via the application activities (video taping activities). This process enables the trainer to move the information out into the real world as they present training material in the future.. Throughout the training, the master trainer is modeling the skills of an effective trainer.